Obesity, diabetes treatments fuel Eli Lilly growth and spark bidding war

The market for obesity and diabetes treatments remains scorching hot, funneling billions in sales to Eli Lilly and fueling a bidding war over another drugmaker.

Lilly said Thursday that its top-selling drugs, Mounjaro and Zepbound, brought in more than $10 billion combined during the recently completed third quarter. That made up over half of the drugmaker’s $17.6 billion in total sales.

Separately, Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk announced plans to buy Metsera Inc. in a deal that could be worth up to $9 billion.

That came more than a month after U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc. made a nearly $5 billion bid for Metsera, which has no drugs on the market but is developing several potential oral and injectable treatments.

Popular treatments labeled GLP-1 receptor agonists are fueling the soaring sales and deal interest. They work by mimicking hormones in the gut and the brain to regulate appetite and feelings of fullness. But they don’t work for everyone and can produce side effects that include nausea and stomach pain.

Supplies of the drugs have improved this year, and some insurance coverage is growing. That helps improve access to drugs that can cost around $500 a month without coverage. That can put them out of reach for many patients.

The treatments are injectable drugs, but Novo and Lilly also are developing easier-to-take pill versions.

U.S. sales of Lilly’s weight-loss treatment Zepbound nearly tripled to $3.57 billion in the third quarter. Meanwhile, revenue from the diabetes drug Mounjaro, which has been on the market longer, doubled to $6.52 billion thanks to growth outside the U.S.

Combined, the drugs have brought in nearly $25 billion in sales so far this year for Indianapolis-based Lilly. That surpasses the entire company’s revenue total from 2020.

The drugs helped Eli Lilly and Co. record a $5.58 billion profit in the third quarter and deliver a better performance than Wall Street expected.

Novo Nordisk said it will pay $56.50 in cash for each Metsera share and could pay an extra $21.25 if the company meets some drug development milestones. The drugmaker already has the obesity and diabetes treatments Wegovy and Ozempic on the market.

That combined total of $77.75 more than doubles the closing price of Metsera shares on Sept. 19, the last trading day before Pfizer made its offer.

Metsera said Thursday that its board has determined that the new, unsolicited offer from Novo was superior, and Pfizer has four business days to negotiate adjustments to its offer.

Pfizer called Novo’s offer “reckless and unprecedented” and an attempt by a drugmaker with a “dominant market position to suppress competition in violation of law by taking over an emerging American challenger.”

Pfizer is known for the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and the treatment Paxlovid, among other drugs. But the New York drugmaker decided to take another stab at obesity treatments months after ending development of its own drug.